


A Christmas Fix-it Wish

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Fix-It: s04e08 Silence in the Library, F/M, Fluff, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4816124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is one way to get River out of the Library. And just in time for the 2015 Christmas special, too...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Christmas Fix-it Wish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kehwie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kehwie/gifts), [SnubNosedSilhouette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnubNosedSilhouette/gifts), [areyoumarriedriver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyoumarriedriver/gifts), [Amie33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amie33/gifts).



“Stop with the  _eyes_ .”

Clara made them, impossibly, wider.

The Doctor groaned.

“Why? Why _here_ , Clara? Ye’re meant to _save_ me, not to…” He broke off. This him was less weepy than the last two before him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the pain.

Sometimes he thought he felt it more deeply.

“I think I am saving you,” Clara said quietly. “We’re saving you, me and the box. If she brought us here, then she thinks—“

“She thinks I’m needed,” the Doctor said heavily, and slumped into a chair.

“Or that you need to be here. Doctor…” Clara was pleading now, and the eyes took up half her face.

And he wasn’t as immune to those pools of liquid brown as he’d like.

“Oh, _all_ right,” he heard himself grump. “If the both of ye are on me about it.”

There was a reassuring whoosh of the rotor, and the door opened of its own accord.

It opened on the sight of an angular chair built into a wall.

“Hello, sweetie,” the chair’s occupant said, smiling _that_ smile at him, the happy wide-one, not the despairing half-one. “Merry Christmas.”

\--v--

\--^-- 

“You don’t look happy to see me, sweetie.”

He knew that look. That was the show-no-damage look. The one from the day he’d run away in Stormcage, from Manhattan when he’d kissed her wrist better, from all the dark days when that younger, bumbling, untrusting him had been so abashed by her very _River-ness_ that he’d hurt her terribly.

The Doctor would do anything to wipe that look from River’s face.

But he couldn’t speak. She was _dead_. This her was dead, and if he’d wanted an earlier her, he’d have gone back and gotten one. Back before Darillium, before Manhattan and Jim the Fish and even Easter Island. Before all of it.

_not one line…_

But he hadn’t done, because she’d asked him not to, because he couldn’t bear to, and now this her was smiling that empty half smile and he had to do something, _anything_ to show that he knew who she was, that he still…

“How…?” It was all he could manage, and that hoarsely and broken, but her entire bearing relaxed, and the smile grew wider. She stepped away from the damn chair and toward him, and held out her hands.

He took them in his own without thinking, pulled his wife to him in the doorway of the TARDIS, and as he buried his face in her hair, he heard Clara sniffle. And suddenly everything was all right; he had River here with him. “Is she doin’ the eyes?” It was a murmur into that amazing hair.

River nodded, her curls tickling his nose. “And crying at the same time. Well…” She pulled back to look at him. “I suppose we _are_ a sight.”

“How did you do it, River?” It was a valid question, and he knew River Song. He had no doubt whatsoever that she had done it, escaped the Library Hard Drive, all by herself.

The smile grew even wider, as she said, simply, “Look into my eye.”

He didn’t. After that he didn’t need to. And it was likely she herself wasn’t in there; not her miniaturised body in any case. She wasn’t piloting the Tesselecta.

She _was_ the Tesslecta.

“How?” This time the word was stronger, less hoarse, one scientist to another. Curiosity rather than shock.

“It took some doing,” she admitted. “You erasing yourself from every database in existence made chasing down the plans quite a task. But you couldn’t erase my memories.”

“Because you aren’t part of the database? You are – were – a resident rather than part of it?”

She shook her head, curls bouncing madly. “Because nothing could induce me to forget you, Doctor. _My_ Doctor.”

“My River. River Song. Melody Pond. The woman who married me...” He paused, remembering. “And wife, I have a request.” Twining his fingers between hers, he paused again, waiting.

She didn’t disappoint. She never did.

“Yes?”

“Come along, Pond.”


End file.
